


The Offside Trap Job

by phnelt



Series: Leverage Works [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Clone Wars is basically a character in this, F/M, FIFA is that corrupt, He really did have an apartment just for his cats, M/M, Multi, Parker is actually great at relationships, Periodically restarting due to unicorn crashes, The soundtrack to this fic is just Always by Erasure, Threesome, over and over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 13:57:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16493903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phnelt/pseuds/phnelt
Summary: “But you guys are dating. You were dating first. And Hardison never told me you broke up!” Alec knows that tone, that’s an upset Parker tone, and his heart gives a little clench. He wants to make it ok for her.“Parker,” Alec begins, “we weren’t dating.”“I saw you. I saw you guys in Boston, I saw you in LA. You were having dinner, just like here, and you were kissing. I saw you other times.You guys went camping together,” she accuses.





	The Offside Trap Job

**Author's Note:**

> Me, reading a fantastic Hardison/Parker/Eliot fic: There is *no way* Eliot is just now realising he's attracted to Hardison. I mean, look at him.
> 
> Amazing beta by Scintilla10 and Severnaya

Alec’s achieving a pretty good zone, casually browsing Reddit with Parker leaning on him. Eliot’s clanking around near the stove ranting about the offside rule in soccer. He just lets that mix with the sound of Eliot chopping some garnishes for the chili that’s been bubbling. He’s waiting on the results of the background checks he has going on the corrupt FIFA official who had the misfortune to fall into their crosshairs, so he’s got nowhere to be. Every once in a while he throws something out at Eliot to wind him up, but otherwise he’s pretty good to just rest for a while. It’s as close to achieving perfect zen as you can get outside of playing Robot Unicorn Attack.

He feels Parker shift against him and sit up so he makes a questioning noise.

Which is when everything just falls to shit.

“You know, you guys can kiss in front of me if you want.”

And just like that, Eliot’s rant and Alec’s brain screech to a halt. He tries to rewind his brain, like did she just? He looks over at her, and she looks like Standard Parker, a little bit determined, but not like she just told Alec and Eliot to kiss. Out of literally nowhere. He tries to pull himself together.

“Uhh, Parker.” Ok so not maybe totally together, but he’s trying. He looks over at Eliot. _Help._ Eliot’s just looking at Parker and is he _frightened?_ Not sure what’s going on there.

He tries again.“Why would we want to do that?” Questions are good, questions will make this make sense.

“I know you’re shy in front of the team. But it’s just me, and I’m special cause Hardison and I are special. So, you guys can do stuff. Doesn’t have to be kissing, but I know you like to.”

And that’s just a total heart attack moment.

“Hardison isn’t cheating on you. He would _never._ ” Eliot seems to have woken up and decided to contribute. Great! Wouldn’t have been Alec’s first angle, but then again, right now his brain is basically _“???”_ and “ _??!?”_

Parker just looks at Eliot nonplussed.

“Yeah, I know. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Means he isn’t going to be kissing anyone else, let alone me.” Now Parker looks confused, which isn’t fair. After all of that communication about pretzels, Alec thought they were on the same page.

“But you guys are dating. You were dating first. And Hardison never told me you broke up!” Alec knows that tone, that’s an upset Parker tone, and his heart gives a little clench. He wants to make it ok for her.

“Parker,” Alec begins, “we weren’t dating.”

“I saw you. I saw you guys in Boston, I saw you in LA. You were having dinner, just like here, and you were kissing. I saw you other times. _You guys went camping together,”_ she accuses.

And that’s true. And in retrospect, camping is a little Brokeback Mountain for two theoretically this-is-just-convenient guys. Frankly, the others should have probably figured them out. What else, aside from sex, could convince Alec to sleep in a tent? But it was no big deal at the time, he’s pretty sure. Eliot always made it seem really normal.

“We were kissing, sometimes.” Alec isn’t sure if he’s imagining that Eliot’s voice is a little rough, a little strained. “But when Hardison told me you said yes to dating, we stopped. We aren’t doing anything behind your back, I promise.” Alec finds himself nodding along. It’s a reasonable explanation, and it helps that it’s true. This doesn’t fix Parker’s upsetness, unfortunately.

“So I’m what broke you up? I’m a –,” she pauses like she’s tasting out the words, “– a homewrecker?” And now she’s starting to look really upset.

“No, babe –“ he starts but Eliot interrupts.

“No!” Eliot says. “No, it ain’t like that at all, Parker. For me and Hardison, there wasn’t anything to break up. We’re friends. We were friends who had sex. He wanted more than that from you, so we stopped.” Eliot tries to make it sound matter of fact, but he’s got that hunched in look he gets whenever the team thanks him too much for saving them or asks him where he got that scar. But he appreciates how classy _‘Friends who had sex’_ sounds in comparison to the reality, which was pure fuckbuddies without being buddies. Don’t get him wrong, buddies came later, but Alec was never sure how much their out of bed friendliness crossed over to their in bed times.

There’s an awkward silence for a second. Parker’s just standing there, staring at Eliot.

“But that’s what dating is. It’s friends who have sex. I know I’m not wrong about this.” And she’s starting to hug herself a little. Eliot looks, if possible, even more freaked out.

“I gotta go.” Eliot grabs his jacket and heads out of the apartment. When Alec looks back, Parker is already gone.

“What the fuck was that?” Alec says to the simmering pot of chili. The chili says nothing back.

Alec stares at the chili for a few more seconds. The thing is, Alec has always been a go with it kind of guy. So when Eliot set his terms, Alec went with them and was just happy to be along for the ride. And Eliot’s the one who said, day one, this isn’t a relationship and if Alec never even thought about more than that. And after everything, Alec isn’t sorry about any of it, not if it means he gets to be with Parker now and he got to have Eliot then.

Being with Eliot was fun, and it was easy.

Usually, Eliot would stay late after a briefing. And they took a couple of weekend trips. But mostly once the crew left, Eliot would sneak back in. Sometimes they’d jump straight into bed, sometimes they’d have a few beers, watch the game. Later, when he thought he could get away with it, he’d try to convince Eliot to make him a little something. Did that until the convincing was a formality and he started stocking up on real ingredients on the regular. He bought a spice rack, and nested mixing bowls, and silicon spatulas, and he’s kept on buying those for all of his next apartments.

Now Parker fills all the spaces Eliot used to take up. She stays after sometimes and Eliot cooks for both of them. Sometimes Parker stays over alone. Sometimes they both do and Eliot crashes in the spare room.

Before Alec and Parker started dating, Eliot had spent a lot of time talking about how to make Parker comfortable. Eliot actually had some pretty decent advice about being patient - not Alec’s strength.

So if Eliot had wanted more than sex, why did he do that?

He replays what Eliot said: _He wanted more than that from you._

He made it sound like Alec didn’t want anything from Eliot.

Or maybe it was more like Alec wanted _more_ from Parker, like he liked her better.

Hell, this was starting to make his brain hurt.

He didn’t like to think about this. Generally things are the way they are and it’s not worth looking for a hidden meaning. Dissecting this put him at the confluence of a whole bunch of Nana’s saying around being too sharp and making trouble and not accepting people when they show you who you are. He’s one cross stitch sampler away from being able to open his own shop.

For a second he thinks about being angry at Parker for bringing it up, then at Eliot for reacting so weird. But he can’t bring himself to do it. Getting angry about other people’s emotions never got him anywhere. And to be honest, he loves Parker’s honesty and he’s accepted that Eliot’s mystique is part of his appeal.

So it just figured, that it was only now, when things were _fine,_ when things were _good,_ that it all went horribly wrong. He got to be with Parker now, and Parker is a marvel. And if sometimes a tiny part of his brain missed the way Eliot would almost-smile at him when he gave Alec a kiss goodbye, that was nothing compared to the actual smiles he’s getting from Eliot and Parker on the regular.

His chili was getting cold. He threw it back in the pot, wiped the board, and logged into Warcraft. This one wasn’t getting solved tonight.

***

The next morning, everything was blissfully normal for a moment right when he woke up, and then the whole scene from last night crashed back in. Alec groaned. He deeply contemplated just rolling himself into the pillow and waiting for Parker and Eliot to come in and tell him it’s all blown over now.

But they’re running a grift on the FIFA guy today and he can’t leave Sophie without her personal Oracle. So, reluctantly, he heads out into the main room.

The whole crew’s there and alert, even if Nate is giving crazy eyes to the coffee machine. Alec snags a soda and goes to drop down on the couch when he feels Eliot’s hand on his wrist. He looks down.

“You took the chili off the burner.” Alec hears the silent _thank you_ , like he always does. He bites back his default slightly sarcastic, _you're welcome_ , as a flash of heat goes through him as he remembers exactly why he’s never ever going to leave chili on the burner again.

Was Parker watching then? Did she see Eliot on his knees, Alec clinging to the counter to keep himself upright? Eliot kept him on the edge so long the chili was molecularly fused to the pan. How many times was she there? Did she see the way that Eliot went utterly soft and boneless when Alec was inside him after he’d already come once? The way he’d grip onto Alec’s waist when he was riding him, like Alec would float away if he didn’t keep them together? He kind of hopes she did. He likes the idea of her knowing him, of knowing them like that.

And maybe that’s unusual but Alec’s never been big on questioning himself. He likes what he likes and he doesn’t overthink it.

Something must come through through on his face cause Eliot withdraws his hand and squints off into the middle distance.

Rolling his eyes a little, Alec drops down on the couch in his usual spot. Parker is staring at him, head tilted like she can’t quite figure him out. And that hurts. He doesn’t want to be a puzzle to her; he wants her to have him figured out.

It’s going to be a long morning.

***

He turns out to be wrong. The con is going to plan, for once, but monitoring Nate and Sophie’s feed while they prime the target at the same time he’s helping Eliot and Parker break into the mark’s secret penthouse suite takes up his full concentration. By the time they’ve gotten the mark on the hook it’s already lunchtime.

The crew comes back to recap.

“Ok so what we learned so far: dude is almost too corrupt. He was way too into accepting your bribes.”

“I half expected him to pull out a standardised agreement, he was so practiced.” Sophie tosses her hair before leaning in to pull up a photo from their earlier surveillance. “I don’t like it. With all of his assets he shouldn’t be so desperate for our money. It’s only $100k. The payments he’s getting from the Russian construction companies should dwarf that easily.”

“That’s where the secondary apartment comes in.” Parker perks up. Girl loves tall buildings.

“The one with all the cats?” Also loves cats. Apparently.

Hardison uses the clicker to pull the pictures and schematics up on the big screen. “That one. Sweet Penthouse overlooking the park. Totally given over to the cats, no other occupants. But that’s not the only thing. Regular payments of $10,000 a month are being paid out to,” another click, “MCM consulting. Now, those cats were pampered, but this is excessive. MCM are a property management company –- obvious shell –- but we can track it back to this man,” Hardison gestures at the screen, “Johan Johnsson. Now this guy has – you name it –, ties to the mafia, Russian money laundering, hell even a few Saudi princes.”

Nate takes over.

“So we think our guy has gotten tangled up in something and lost control. Something that’s costing him every month. Parker, you’re on break-in duty at MCM tonight. Sophie’s setting up some background, and Eliot, you’re going to tail Mr. Johnsson. See if we can’t get a sense of what his other clients are up to.” Nate nods decisively and the team splits off to get it done. Parker grins brightly and prances off. Hardison goes to share a glance with Eliot but Eliot’s totally checked out, staring at his shoes.

Ok, well that sucks. Guess some awkwardness was bound to happen. If this is a nice universe, maybe it’ll just all blow over soon and get back to normal. They’re two episodes behind on Tthe Clone Wars already and it’s getting way too hard to avoid spoilers.

***

Parker’s break in isn’t scheduled til later so she’s hanging around the apartment while the rest of the crew are running around. Alec’s keeping half an ear on the comms while he’s helping her de-fuzz after her recon at the penthouse. Turns out? An apartment full of cats means a lot of fur. No incriminating records but endless fur.

Not really how he planned to spend his afternoon, but he’s honestly just happy that it seems like she still wants to be around him. He’s not totally sure why she was so upset last night, but she seems to be in a better place now. He knows how special it is that Parker wants him in her space, and he’ll be happy to hang as long as she still wants him around. And maybe she didn’t always say it, but he could tell. Words aren’t everything. So things can’t be that bad. Hopefully anything else can be worked out.

“All of those cats and Nate wouldn’t even let me take one,” Parker grumbled. “He wouldn’t miss one, there’s no way he could even pet them all.”

“I think Nate didn’t want to take the chance.”

Parker’s still grumbling but then she brightens.

“Maybe I can go back after and pick one out. Or! We could steal the whole apartment and keep all the cats.” And just, no. No one needs 20 cats and their team is no exception.

“That’s, that’s definitely a thing that could happen,” he hedges, hoping that this is never going to come up again. They lapse into a silence, broken by an occasional tearing sound as he unwraps the next sheet.

He’s about done with his second roll; Parker’s relaxed a bit more into it. She’s leaning back into each pass like a disgruntled cat herself.

“Hardison?”

“Yeah babe?”

“I don’t want you and Eliot to be broken up.” Alec doesn’t know what to say. He could say _I don’t know what you mean_ , but that’s a lie. He could say _we were never like that_ cause after last night he thinks they were sure _something_. Sex friends don’t make dinner together every night, probably. But his heart hurts when he thinks about all of the things he missed. Maybe he should have paid more attention but he had been so honestly happy. Right now he’d rather focus on how nice it is to be petting Parker.

When in doubt, deflect.

“Did you talk to Sophie about this?”

“No, she’s bad at relationships.” Which, ouch. But if the sample is Nate, then yeah, pretty fair. “She did have some good suggestions for how to use that penthouse apartment, but I think a cat apartment is not as bad as the rest of you keep making it sound.”

He keeps rolling, hoping that something else will come to him but Parker turns around to face him. So clearly his attempt to deflect fizzled.

“It doesn’t feel good knowing that we’re working but you guys aren’t. Eliot takes care of us. With his fists but also with other nicer stuff, and he’s not going anywhere.” When she says that, he knows what she means. Almost everybody is coming or going – even Sophie left – but they both know Eliot has chosen to stick with them for the long haul. “It’s stupid that you decided that you and me only works if you guys don’t. And you’re not normally stupid so I don’t get why.”

He realizes he’s still holding the roller mid-air and tries to decide if he should put it down. He sort of makes a move with it but Parker’s got him pinned with a look that says he’s not going to be able to get away with any attempt to evade this conversation. So now he’s left trying to explain the concept of monogamy while waving around an Angora’s worth of fur.

“You know, most people only date one person at a time.” Parker’s stare shifts into a psychic attack that would reduce the strongest steel type pokemon’s special defense to zero. It’s super effective! It says, pretty eloquently, that a) we’re not most people and b) most people clearly means not all people so again, what does he think he’s trying to get away with.

Sometimes he misses when she only had two expressions: _murder face_ and _yay, a whole bunch of money!_

Her new emotional awareness is really trashing his self-perception as the reasonable one in this group.

“Can I focus on the part where you said that we’re working?” Parker’s look says ‘no’ and also that he’s verging on becoming the bad guy in this situation and – that’s not fair. He might not be the best at this relationship thing – though he did convince the two hottest people he’s ever met to not only have sex with him but stick around so he must be doing _something_ – but he was respectful! He listened and didn’t push and generally didn’t do anything that would make his nana frown. So it’s incredibly unfair that he’s getting the eyes of doom from Parker right now.

Like right now he’s in trouble for literally working within the lines Eliot drew.

He tries to figure out how to put that into words.

Settles for, “It’s what Eliot wanted.”

“Well, that’s dumb. You were both clearly working from some faulty premises. I guess that’s not your fault –” her tone implies that it definitely was their fault “– so I think you should talk to him.” _Yeah, no,_ he thinks. And in the spirit of talking more about his feelings, he says:

“Yeah, no.” He tries to bring even half as much certainty as Parker was projecting. “I am not telling Eliot Spencer that you’ve decided we should start having sex again. That is not happening. That’s a terrible idea.”

Parker looks put out.

“You really think so?”

“Yes, I really do.”

“Ok, so how do we fix this?”

He wants to say that broken up isn’t broken. Alec has a relationship with Eliot. It’s not the one they had before, but it has a lot of the best parts. Plus some new very nice things. And he’s not going to beg Eliot for anything else when Alec knows in his bones they only lasted as long as they did because he never demanded anything of Eliot he wasn’t already giving. He knows Eliot is always going to be there in case of sudden doom, that he will carry them out of any burning building, but that doesn’t mean he’ll stick around for dinners and birthdays and Clone Wars. He doesn’t just want to be Eliot’s for the big things, he wants to keep the every day too. He’s not going to do anything to risk that.

“I don’t know.” Surprisingly she seems to accept this for the moment.

“Ok.” She peers at him a little. “You’re the furry one now.” He looks down and sure enough, his black t-shirt is now a sort of patchwork of different fur colours. Goddammit, how did that even happen? Cats are magical.

***

They let Eliot get away with avoiding them for two days before Alec cracks and sends him a text that’s more of a summons to appear. He’s been fine on the job so Alec isn’t super worried about pushing Eliot too far. He includes a shitty phone photo of Parker’s pleading face because he has never been above playing dirty.

The evening starts out ok. Eliot is chopping away in the kitchen while they’re talking through how many cats is the line between cat person and hoarder.

“I’m just saying, once you’re outnumbered, that’s too many cats.” Which Alec thinks is a perfectly reasonable point.

“No, it’s situational. On a farm you need as many cats as will get along to control the mice. And then you might as well let a few inside.” As usual, Parker and Eliot are ganging up on him. Eliot’s going to regret this when he shows up one day and there’s three cats throwing up on his knives. Alec would pretend to be shocked, but it’s not worth the effort. He’ll get back at them when he cues up Clone Wars. He’s pretty sure at this point they’re only pretending not to like it.

Once they get their bowls and beer, the first problem pops up. Alec and Parker take their normal spots on the couch but Eliot parks himself in a chair halfway across the room. Since he normally just crowds onto the couch with them, it’s pretty noticeable.

Alec eyes the space, then eyes Eliot, who is avoiding his gaze and decides not to say anything. Unfortunately he forgot to give any of those eyes to Parker.

“Eliot, get on the couch?” It starts out as a bit of a demand and then softens up into some confusion towards the end. Eliot just smile-grimaces.

“Nah, I’m good.” Alec has gotten his eyes back into gear and is staring a laser through Parker trying to get her to back off.

“No, you’re not good, you’re far away.”

Now Eliot has never exploded at Parker the way that he does at Alec, but he’s expecting some sort of reaction to that. He’s disappointed. Eliot keeps doing his best impersonation of a lump.

Parker is not impressed with Eliot’s new lump-like properties. She frowns over at his chair and hisses, “Cut it out.” Eliot just curls a little more into himself. Alec hates it.

Parker follows it up with an admonishment to Eliot. “You need to fix this.” And woah, that’s unfair. If Alec feels like he didn’t do anything wrong then the worst thing Eliot did was be a good friend. And maybe he didn’t talk about his feelings, but who does?

“Parker, stop. Eliot can do whatever. Eliot’s not a problem to be fixed.” The words feel right when he says them. He risks a look over at Eliot who’s wearing an expression Alec’s never seen before. It’s totally vulnerable. Alec’s never seen Eliot look vulnerable outside of a sex context, which means he hasn’t seen it in a really long time. It makes him optimistic that he’s on the right track. It’s kind of the end of the track though, cause he’s not even sure where that came from or where that’s going.

Eliot turns to look at Parker and they have one of their indecipherable, wordless exchanges. It ends with Parker tipping leaning her shoulders in and then nodding conciliatorily. So, could be anything. But in response Eliot drops down on the couch. Progress.

What follows is the most tense watching of a Star Wars product since _Attack of the Clones_ was released in theatres.

By the end, Eliot has unbent a fraction and Parker no longer looks like she’s a moment from springing into the rafters so he takes a chance and cues up some random action film that’s in his queue. He thinks it might be from Hong Kong? He’s not looking too closely. It just doesn’t feel right to send everybody home yet. Maybe if Parker relaxes enough she’ll want to stay over. It happens sometimes, but not a lot. He feels like every moment he can get them to stay is a step closer to things being ok. The last few days have felt a bit like those early days when they were all figuring out what it meant to be a crew by choice. He hasn’t felt this unsure of them since they got Nate out of prison.

He tunes into the movie. It’s not so bad so far, sister assassins, highly unrealistic shoe physics. Should be fun for the whole family. He finds himself sinking into it.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, he wakes up. Normally Parker’s the one who falls asleep, but he guesses his shitty sleep last night caught up to him. His body is still heavy so he twists his neck around a bit to try and wake up.

He sees Parker and Eliot standing over by the bar, talking in low voices.

Alec’s only human. His two main desires are to hear what they’re saying, and second, to not get caught eavesdropping. Those two desires are perfectly in alignment with him just flopping back into the couch and not moving at all.

Eliot’s saying something too quiet for him to hear, but Parker is nodding along seriously.

“I’m going to trust you to handle this, but you have to be better. You have to be normal. We agreed: being us is ok but Hardison is a good person, so we have to treat him good.” They both exchange the exact same nod with each other and then Eliot casually strides out of the apartment like this hasn’t been the weirdest movie night in the history of them.

Alec realizes they must have these super philosophical conversations all the time. Which kind of blows his mind since historically, when he has tried to have emotional conversations with them, he’s had to resort to meaningful glances and metaphors. Or at least he used to. Parker’s really been giving him a run for his money this week.

Also, they strategize about how to deal with him. Which he will unpack later. He doesn’t want to think about it too much. He gets that they want him to be taken care of, but he doesn’t want to be managed by his best friends. But it explains something about some of the random turns Parker has taken with him.

Oh shit, Parker’s coming back over. Alec hastily closes his eyes.

Parker slides in next to him on the couch and burrows into his chest. He waits a couple of minutes, but she seems to be out, so he lets himself get pulled back down into sleep.

***

Eliot’s escorting Alec down to the server room. Turns out Russian mobsters are paranoid about data security. Some of their other marks could really learn from their data hygiene practices. Eliot’s being totally business-like, which could feel normal, except Eliot’s never been very business-like with Alec when they’re on a job. He finds he’s missing the slightly mean-spirited banter. So he starts poking him.

He tries insulting sports, which is pretty easy since he’s become way too familiar with soccer during this job. Barely gets him a growl. Tries a couple of other things. He’s not proud to say it, he ends up insulting the hair.

“What do you want from me, man?”

And maybe Alec should have thought this through a bit more cause he didn’t really plan past this point.

He shrugs.

“You want to do this now?” Alec shrugs again. He’s not really sure what ‘this’ is but if Parker gets to have emotionally intense conversations with Eliot he doesn’t see why _he_ shouldn’t get to. That’s just fairness.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Alec says. The silence draws out.

“C’mon man, we haven’t talked in ages. I don’t know what’s going on with you. Parker’s been upset, and I - “ _realized some stuff about you,_ Alec things. Or maybe just _I missed you._

This gets a reaction out of Eliot. “You don’t know what’s going on with me?” Eliot paces a little.

Continues,“Seems to me you’re the mystery.” Alec scoffs; he knows he’s a total open book. “I know what I can have. I know what Parker wants. You’re the one I have questions about. You keep pushing and poking but you’re not saying a goddamn thing.” He pauses and then continues, devastatingly, “Do you even know where you want this to go?”

Alec’s default to that tone of voice is to get confrontational, rile Eliot up. So he starts out with, “Of course I know what I want. I – “ but then he has to stop cause really, he hasn’t thought about it. He knows what he doesn’t want, which is losing his comfortable space with Eliot and Parker. They’re his home. He’s been 100% focused on just riding this out cause if he waits long enough this will get back to normal. But is normal what he really wants?

“Yeah, so figure that out.” Eliot’s already running at the security goons who have appeared down the hall. Damn these Russians have really re-defined overkill.

Eliot gestures at Alec, so he takes his cue and dashes into the server room. He starts tapping into the different drives, pulling up the records.

He pulls up some titles and deeds from one building, then another. Some of the names are familiar.

He recognizes them as the other esteemed residents of the Cat Penthouse Building. Huh. He keeps pulling up records. A clear pattern is emerging and it’s bigger than he thought.

He can’t believe he didn’t realize earlier. These aren’t secret pleasure palaces; the cats are an outlier. He’s stumbled into a massive international money laundering scheme. Everyone in that building is hiding some immense sum of money from the government. It makes the stadium contracts look like chump change.

This complicates things. If they want to nail the mark for wilfully allowing slave labour, they’re going to have to decide how they’re going to handle the who’s who of sketchy international millionaires that infest these records. There’s way too many terabytes to copy.

He ends up having to rip the hard-drives out of the wall. Not subtle, and it has the side effect of tripping the wire that controls the electromagnetic locks on this room. He’s locked in.

He comms in to let the team know what’s going on.

He checks the system and it looks like it’ll be 20 minutes to cycle the system. Should be enough air in here. He considers panicking for a second, but no, this life has deadened him. Worst comes to worst he knows Eliot will excavate him out with a fire axe. Then he freaks out a bit about how he’s not freaked out.

Once that’s done, he checks his watch. Damn, still 17 minutes. So that means it’s deep introspection time. Yay, everyone’s favourite.

He’s hates that he has to think about this. Things had always gone so well. First Eliot with his stupid hair and stupid hands, then somehow being good enough that Parker wanted to let him in. But he feels like he should have known. It was all too good to be true.

From the moment after the wedding job, when Eliot stayed late and just said ‘you wanna.’ From every time after that when Eliot fed him and fucked him and walked away in the morning, he should have known. Maybe Alec had thought about some more romantic stuff, but there’d always been Parker and Eliot was never an option. He loved when Alec fucked him but he wouldn’t hug him when anyone was around.

But then Eliot said, _“I know what I can have,”_ like some Oliver Twist who knew better than to ask for more gruel. And what is with Eliot having this stupid self-denial streak. Alec was always right there, right for the taking. _But then you couldn’t have gotten to know Parker like this,_ a small voice inside him says. And maybe Alec thought that was true – maybe Eliot thought that was true – but now he knows for sure that it isn’t. Parker told him that pretty explicitly.

So yeah, he does know what he wants. He wants to see Eliot’s little half-smile in the morning. He wants to not worry that Eliot is going to up and walk away if he asks him for something. And he wants to ask Eliot for a lot.

***

Alec gets out of the room exactly on time. Eliot’s waiting for him outside and they walk out together in uncharacteristic silence. There’s no suspicous piles of Russian goons so Eliot must have done something to clear the building.

Eliot always finds a reason to sleep over when either of them get menaced, so if the pattern sticks, Eliot should stay over tonight. Might be a good time to talk, Alec can share his realizations.

His brain idles around on that for a bit while he sets up his data mining program. Then he starts to dig into the various fronts that the mark uses to store his sketchy FIFA bribes. He gets pretty lost in that until the sound of Parker announcing her entrance snaps him out of it.

She and Eliot are here. Eliot holds a bag of Thai takeout aloft. It’s from Alec’s favourite place, but. No home cooked food. So Alec isn’t totally forgiven for his confrontation earlier. He makes eye contact with Parker and she just shrugs.

His stomach sinks. _This is the beginning,_ his brain says. It’s like he’s reversing through time: no sex, then no dinner, then no Eliot at all.

It doesn’t matter what he figured out sitting in that Russian server room. Maybe Eliot has known what he can have, but Alec just has to take what he can get.

He tries not to be surprised when Eliot leaves when the food is gone.

***

The next morning he lays out what he found.

This results in a blow-out on the team. Unsurprisingly, Nate wants to go after all of dirty money launderers. And that casts Sophie in the role of person actually advocating for the client.

“ - those slaves are building those World Cup stadiums _right now._ Every day we let him continue, is another day when Kyusha’s brother can meet with an accident.”

“So you just want me to let them to _get away with it?”_

“Listen to yourself! This isn’t. About. You!”

This goes on for quite a while. To be honest, sometimes the hardest part of the job is knowing how many of these people are going to get away scot free. They can’t get them all.

In the end, they agree the best option is to try and pit the building manager against the mark. That should at least destabilise the property management money laundering scheme for a little while. They have other places to hide their misery money, but it’s something.

Parker leaves immediately to plant the evidence and Sophie stomps out as loudly as a woman in 4-inch stilettos can. Nate and Eliot seem to realize at the same time that the last person in the apartment is going to have to get in the van with Alec, but Nate is a little closer to the door and makes a break for it.

Alec would be offended of this rejection of his company but, to be frank, he’s also not looking forward to the unavoidable exhausting emotional conversation that is bound to happen if they get trapped together inside of her for an extended period. He’s just going to accelerate the regression to stranger Eliot. And since he didn’t realize the immensity of his emotional stake in this until today it feels unfair to be this destroyed by the thought.

But he rallies and sends a thumbs up to Eliot. Eliot just glares harder.

***

They’ve been sitting in the van for about 20 minutes before Eliot snaps. Alec’s been chattering away about the specs on the new gaming rig he’s putting together. They’re off the comms, but Alec is monitoring everyone’s frequencies.

“Enough.”

Alec cuts himself off mid-rapture about the capture card.

“It doesn’t matter what we’re doing or not doing. If people think you’re with me, people will be shitty to Parker. And I’m not doing that to her.”

Without thinking, Alec says, “Who says I even want to get with you?” And immediately regrets it when Eliot visibly flinches.

“No - no, man. I want to. I thought about it and I definitely want to.” He sort of flaps out a hand towards Eliot, trying to encompass the whole world. “And since when do we care about other people.”

Was

“...I care.” Eliot says quietly, but then his voice grows with confidence. “They don’t get to treat you guys like shit.” And this is like, honestly touching. He knew how Eliot shows how he cares, but it’s still good to hear it.

“Aw man, thanks.” He wants to give some positive reinforcement for that. “But man, I think... this could be good. You can have this, I can have this, and we can make it work.” He was hoping for maybe one of those gentle Eliot smiles, but Eliot just looks pissed off. Great.

“Yeah? Well I don’t think you’ve thought this through.” Harsh. Alec spent a full twenty minutes working this out.

“Well, maybe not all the details, but I have some ideas.” He warms to the topic. “We can have date nights! You and me. And we can do dinner, like normal, the three of us.”

“And when we go out, we’re going to hold hands, is that it?” Eliot says. His derision is pretty hurtful, cause actually, Alec does like to hold hands and Eliot’s are nice. “What happens if Parker has a bad day and it’s date night? Where you going to go then? And where do I sleep?” His voice cracks a little on the last word and Alec realises that while he thought he was feeling things, Eliot’s been going through it too.

Alec wants to lash out, but he already got a glimpse of miserable flinchy Eliot, so he squashes the impulse and breathes for a second. He thinks about what he’d say to Parker and realizes he’d just ask. So:

“Where do you want to sleep?” Eliot doesn’t respond. “I dunno man, if you want to protect Parker, we can do that. If you want to skip down to the farmer’s market hand-in-hand, we can do that too.” He knows Eliot loves artisanal cheese.

“No. I can’t do that. You don’t know what you’re asking me. I can’t do this ‘relationship.’” He actually makes the air quotes.

Eliot lunges for the van doors and Alec is sick of this shit.

“Stop it. If you’re sticking around then stick around. If you’re going to go then go.” _Please don’t go._ He holds his breath but that argument seems to have worked and Eliot pauses.

Of course, right then the comms go off and Sophie needs backup. Eliot leaps out of the van. Alec shouts after him:

“This isn’t over!” Like he’s some supervillain. Eliot just waves back with an ‘ok’ symbol.

***

The con is a success, thankfully, cause Alec’s heart has just not been in it the whole time. They see the destruction of the mark as he realizes his money is gone. It’s a simple click to route his assets to all of the workers at the construction site in Sochi.

Nothing is left but the final post-mortem at the pub. And aside from some dirty looks between Nate and Sophie, there’s not a lot to discuss.

Before he can get away, Alec grabs Eliot’s wrist and drags him away, ignoring the stares from Nate and Sophie. Parker gives him an encouraging thumbs up. Eliot’s face has hit the absolute maximum of taciturn.

Alec doesn’t let go until he gets Eliot back into the apartment.

“Ok, talk.”

Eliot at least has the decency to look shifty. “About what?”

“You can’t do this relationship. What does that mean?”

“I don’t do relationships, all right? You happy now? The type of guys I like are all,” he gestures at Alec, which he chooses to take as a compliment. “In the life. They’re not safe. It throws off my threat model. It’s not worth it." Alec tries not to hear _you’re not worth it. "_ And after -” Eliot gets this hitch in his breathing that means _Moreau “_ \- I just wasn’t ever going to do it again. I can’t have the adopted kid and two dogs and orange slices at soccer practice. I can’t have normal. Ok? Goddammit.”

He turns as if to run but Alec is sick of that shit. People think Parker’s the one who flees the scene but she has nothing on Eliot’s disappearing act. He probably thinks it’s like Batman but it’s not half as cute.

Eliot doesn’t just get to drop that he and Moreau were boyfriends and then disappear into the night. If only because now Alec has to snuggle the stuffing out of him. And maybe also ruin the lives of everyone who saw Moreau treating Eliot badly and did nothing. This isn’t the first time he’s had this impulse and now he’s extra sure that Parker would help him get it done as effectively as possible.

“Look, we don’t have to be like anyone else! It doesn’t have to be like anyone else would do it. I’ve never expected you to be different than you are, even when I sure wish you would. And if it’s just me you don’t want to -” he gestures to himself in an all-encompassing way he hopes conveys _fuck me, love me, hug me, whatever_ “- that’s different. But if this is some brooding, I am the night, my fists are the hammers of justice complex then I call bullshit.” Eliot is maybe a little like Batman actually, but he’s too mad to concede that it gives Eliot any coolness points.

“Who talks like that ‘I am the night,’ what are you even saying, Hardison.”

But Alec will not be distracted. Not even by Eliot saying ‘I am the night’ in that growly tone of voice. If only he was recording he could set that to Eliot’s ringtone. Maybe the NSA is on to something.

“Eliot…” he begins, helpless. “I don’t want you to go.” Eliot stills in his grasp. Alec means right now, but he also always means forever.

“I’m not going anywhere. You know that.” It’s more of a sound of glass being sanded than an actual statement, but Alec knows he means it, means it in both ways.

“Look man if you don’t want to, I’m not going to push you. But you don’t for a second get to say that it’s on me. Maybe it took me a while, but I told you what I wanted. And nobody wants to keep you as a secret. You’re...ours man, whether or not you want any of the extras.”

“Ok, that’s my piece. I’ll shut up now. Except of course I won’t, but like, about this.”

Alec feels like he should say something else but he said his bit. He feels kind of cleaned out, like all the parts that make him solid are gone and now he’s a transparent tube. It should maybe feel uncomfortable but Alec’s not sure he could feel another emotion if he tried.

Eliot’s face has settled back into a blank mask but his hands are half raised as if to match Alec’s grip on his arms.

They stare at each other for a couple of seconds until Eliot’s eyes flick down to where Alec is still gripping onto his arms.

Alec lets go.

Eliot leaves, and Alec lets him this time.

For a couple of seconds after the door closes, he just stands there feeling a little lost in a way that’s hard to describe. He scrubs his face. Once. Again. Like maybe he can just reset his feelings like he can reset his iPod.

He knows exactly every step that got him here. And in this moment he thinks that he was always heading to this place. Standing here, with Eliot walking away. This bit in the middle, with him and Parker and Eliot making a home together, that was just a temporary reprieve. He should have appreciated it more. He should have laughed at Parker’s jokes.

He shouldn’t have made them watch the first Bablyon 5 movie.

He takes out his phone with every intention of calling Parker but then he just stares at it. He can’t bear to tell her what happened. He doesn’t think she’ll mean about it, but then it’ll be real. He’ll have to explain that he figure out what he wanted and Eliot explicitly rejected him. End of that story. No payoff to this insane week. He pushes the call button but gets a busy signal. Typical. He hopes she’s ordering enough pizza for both of them.

After another minute or two of self-pity he hears the door open again and looks up. He catches a blurry two seconds of Eliot on the move before Eliot presses right up into his space and starts kissing him.

Kissing is a bit of an understatement. This is one of those ‘we survived the end of the world’ kisses. Alec whimpers immediately and tries to give back as much as he can. The kiss goes on for a while which Alec is totally on board with. This kiss is nothing like their last kiss, right after they found out Moreau was coming to Boston. That kiss was desperation, teeth, and it consumed. This kiss for all of its intensity, is full of familiarity and it’s … sweet.

Eliot pulls back and Alec sort of collapses a little onto him. Eliot’s got him before he can slide further and hurt himself.

“We need to talk more about this.”

“Yeah, sure, man, whatever. That was a let’s-do-this kiss, right? I mean, phwoar, no way that’s a goodbye.”

Eliot rolls his eyes and kind of pushes Alec back. But his eyes are crinkling which means there’s going to be a smile in 3, 2, 1…

“Yeah, Hardison, let’s do this.” Eliot smiles.

***

When they finally emerge from the bedroom to get some refreshments, Alec checks his phone. He’s got one text from Parker that just goes “?????” so he texts back <3 <3\. Immediately he gets a !! :) :)

He smiles down at his phone. A second message appears: _I’ll stay at mine tonight._

Man, Parker’s the best.

“Hey, you wanna stay here tonight?” He’s worried Eliot’s gonna tense up, but he just looks back at Alec assessingly.

“Sure, sounds good.” Alec manfully resists doing a fist pump of joy.

***

In the morning, he feels Eliot shift against him and start to get up. It’s way too early, so Alec just makes a sad noise. “Going for a run,” Eliot whispers. Placated, he lets himself fall back asleep.

When he wakes up for real, it’s to the smell of bacon and coffee. Mmm. He forgot about the best part of Eliot sleepovers.

He stumbles out into the main room where Parker and Eliot are already set up companionably at the counter. He blinks at them for a second before he registers the running clothes. Right, they’re running buddies.

Parker turns to him, beaming. He gets less than a second of warning before she’s launching herself into his arms. He lets himself look over at Eliot who is doing his stupidly adorable half smile and just lets himself feel purely happy. He leans in to smell her hair.

“Yay! I’m so glad you stopped being stupid. I can’t wait to tell Nate and Sophie.” He gently puts her down. Coffee. He’s getting more sleepy just watching her be energetic at - jesus it’s only 8:30. He blames the exhaustion on why it takes him a while to realize that Eliot has reverted to his preternatural state of stillness. He eyes him a little over the rim of his mug, waiting for Eliot to tell them what’s up.

“Yeah, Parker, I don’t think we should do that.” Eliot says.

“Do what?” Parker’s still giving off waves of giddiness.

“Tell Nate and Sophie.”

Parker seems genuinely surprised.

“Why not? It’s always better when we come clear with each other.” Girl’s got a point. But at the same time, he’s not in favour of anything that makes Eliot stressed out. In general, Alec thinks Eliot can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants and it’s nobody else’s business. Maybe that’s the attitude that cost him an extended period of Eliot snuggles, but it’s also what got him those snuggles in the first place, so.

But on the other hand, this is ringing all sorts of associations in Alec's brain. He thinks back to everything Eliot’s been saying to him. Is this about keeping them safe? Nate and Sophie already know Eliot cares about them. They could already use Parker and Alec against Eliot. Then he gets it. Eliot is trying to protect him and Parker.

“You don’t want them to be judgy.”

Eliot does his little blink that’s as good as a confirmation. Alec tries not to be pleased that for once he’s the one who understands Eliot better than Parker. Their brain twin thing can get a little freaky. And there they are, doing it again. Parker’s locked her laser beams right into Eliot and he’s trying the chin angle of defiance. But even Alec can tell it’s weak.

“Dammit Parker.” And now it’s her turn to tilt the chin up. But she says

“Fine. We don’t have to tell them right now. This is your decision to wait, not ours.” She pauses for a second. “And you should give Nate and Sophie more credit. They’re our crew, they have our backs.” Damn. Total K.O. Even Alec feels guilty and he doesn’t care what Nate and Sophie know or don’t know. Eliot at least looks a little abashed, but also grateful she’s not pushing it.

***

They’ve got a break since the FIFA commissioner job wrapped up early. Alec’s tracking down a few loose threads for Nate’s obsessive need wrap things up, but other than that he’s free to do whatever. There’s a few upgrades he’s been putting off.

He knows that when Parker and Eliot have time, they both spend a lot of time practicing their ninja talents. No vent in the brewpub is safe. Sometimes she jets off to climb a mountain or commune with a vault. So he’s not actually sure how much any of them are going to see each other for the next bit.

He shouldn’t have been worried. They fall into a rhythm pretty quickly, which sticks around even when they’re working. Eliot trains with some fighters at a gym twice a week when they’re in town, so those nights become Parker and Alec nights. Parker’s less predictable, but she never spends more than 3 days over without taking a couple days of break, so it’s pretty easy to find Eliot and Alec time. And damn did Alec miss Eliot and Alec time. The mouth on that man.

They haven’t burned any other pots of chili but they set the fire alarm off on a frittata. Alec can’t help it; Eliot's so good with those knives. That’s how Eliot got him the first time after all. His reaction at that wedding job hadn’t been real subtle, apparently. And Eliot always uses it to his advantage. The frittata died when Eliot was trying to distract him from his legitimate complaints about Steven Moffat’s narrative inconsistencies. All he has to do is julienne an onion and Alec loses the thread. Mix in a couple of hand fed nibbles for ‘quality control’ and he’s a goner. He’d been working on building up an immunity to it but that seems to have gone poof in the absence of regular sexy times.

He needs to get back to working on that.

But it’s great. He was worried it’d be complicated, but so far no problems.

...He can’t relax. It’s been a month, and he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop. He doesn’t miss feeling like figuring out this relationship _was_ his hobby. But learned from before that when things feel good and easy, it’s probably going to end in drama and disappointing Thai takeout.

He suspects that Parker and Eliot are doing some sort of logistics during their morning run, but he has no proof aside from their general lack of scheduling problems.

He’d worried things might change with Parker, but she seems same as always … which sort of makes sense if she thought they’d been Alec-and-Eliot the whole time. Some days it feels like they’ve been together forever, just the way she moves through his space. Some days it still feels as insanely new. He’s still mapping her freckles. Some of them are a bit ticklish, which is hilarious.

One night they’re lying in bed. He can tell he’s only got about 20 more minutes before Parker gets antsy and heads out, so he tries to get a sense of how she’s feeling about the whole thing. He wants to make sure she still knows she’s special to him.

“No but seriously, you’re still my boo.” She boops him on the nose, “I mean, if you’re not getting enough time then,” she boops him again. He gives one more effort, “I’m just saying, we can always talk - “ he intercepts the finger on the way to his nose, gently grabs her wrist, and plays his trump card. He blows a raspberry right on the inside of her elbow. She shrieks and flails and ends up perched at the end of the bed glaring at him.

He can’t help it. He laughs.

***

The next morning, Parker bounds up to him after the run, pats him on the head twice and says, “You’re doing good, Hardison. You’re a good boyfriend.” Then she skips off to the shower. He looks over at Eliot, who’s just smiling a little as he goes over to flick the switch on the coffee machine.

He adds that to his list of evidence for the Parker and Eliot running conspiracy.

It’s one of their gym days, so Alec sets up Avatar season 2 on the tv and they get into a routine. He doesn't like to antagonize them when they have him under heavy metal objects, so he likes to pick something they can all agree on. Parker loves Appa and Momo something fierce.

This backfired a bit last week when they watched The Tales of Ba Sing Se. When they got to the bit with Iroh singing to his dead son, Eliot skipped all of his left leg lunge things and punched the bag for an extra hour.

(“You ok, Eliot?”

“Yeah, Hardison." _Punch punch. "_ You got a problem?" _Punch._

“Just saying, your face looks a little shiny.”

“It’s called sweating, you should try it sometime.”

And then he made two full pans of brownies.

“They call this eating your pain,” Parker whispered. Which meant she shouted it across the room. Eliot pretended not to listen.)

He can’t wait till they get to the Fire Nation arc. The Gaang failing at undercover should give them dinner conversation for a good while.

Before he knows it, it’s dinner time. Eliot’s making something high-protein that he swears is simple but still looks like witchcraft.

He swears Parker waits for him to take a drink before saying, “So, the kissing.”

Alec chokes a little. Eliot reaches out with his free hand to smack him on the back a bit.

“You should do that.” Before they can say anything, she continues,

“Oh please, I know when it’s the two of you dinner is just one long makeout. So,” and then she makes a little chop chop gesture. Alec is never against kissing, so he’s in favour, he’d just been waiting for Eliot to catch up.

Eliot just kind of shrugs and gives Alec a peck. Then Eliot glances nervously at Parker. Parker just looks just like she always does, no jealousy, no nothing. She gives them a little thumbs up.

Eliot looks so genuinely pleased. He offers up a spoon of sauce for Parker to taste. She leans forward to lick it and they share a smile that is so full of warmth and affection. Alec knows his own face is split into the most unflattering grin. Parker is happy, Eliot is happy. This is probably the most tooth-rotting, super sweet thing that has ever happened in the history of the world. This and the Colin Firth proposal scene from Love Actually.

He has to lean over to Parker and give her a kiss too.

Then he goes back to Eliot and kisses him for real. No little peck, a full on grab and swoon situation. He tries to put all of their years of antagonistic affection to it. Eliot makes a surprised sound, but then he melts into it. Eliot loves kisses. That was the first secret he learned about him.

Parker makes a surprised sound and Eliot whips away from him, already tensed up. Alec looks over too. Huh.

He knows that look.

That’s her “this car goes really fast” look. It’s her “M&M’s go really good on pancakes” look.

And she’s giving it to Eliot.

Alec looks inside real quick to see if he’s feeling any jealousy. So far, nothing. In fact, he feels...curious?

He looks over at Eliot and Eliot clearly does not know what to do with this look.

“Parker?” Eliot asks.

“You look good together.” Eliot blushes. Alec had no idea his face could even do that.

“Can I kiss you?” Wha-whaa? He had no idea Parker was thinking about Eliot that way. Which, looking at her face, maybe she didn’t either. Eliot has totally frozen up, he’s glancing between Parker and Alec back and forth, back and forth.

Alec just makes a _go ahead_ waving gesture. Eliot looks a little torn then squares his shoulder and walks around the island, around Alec, and into Parker’s space. She reaches out and he leans in.

The kiss is brief but Alec is pretty sure his mind is exploding from hotness. Also, his two favourite people. What’s not to love.

They kiss again, a little deeper this time. Eliot reaches out and grabs Alec’s wrist, but doesn’t stop kissing her.

They break apart, then Eliot steps quickly back to the stove and starts stirring vigorously.

“That was nice,” Parker says. Eliot gives a jerky nod of acknowledgement but doesn’t turn around. Alec and Parker exchange a glance.

“Talk to me, Eliot. What are you thinking?” It’s a mark of how much better things are that while Eliot gives the door a longing glance, he doesn’t go anywhere. He does turn off the stove and start ladling into bowls though. Once he gets everything into a bowl, he begins.

“I liked it. But I’m not sure that adding more to this is a good idea.” Fair enough, that does make some sense to Alec. Parker just peers suspiciously though, then does her bird-head tilt thing.

“Adding more what, Eliot?” He doesn’t answer. “Is it adding more feelings?” Eliot does a half-shrug.

“I know Hardison snuck up on you. I know you got comfortable and then you were in too deep.” And that’s a lot of insight for Parker to have. And Parker’s good, but she’s not that good. Eliot must have told her. Eliot never even told him. He figured it out cause he put together the clues but Eliot never said. How come Eliot told Parker but Alec just has to guess what’s going on with Eliot based on food and glances and goddamn emotional smoke signals.

That doesn’t make any damn sense. Then Eliot starts talking again.

“I always knew you were off-limits though. Always. No matter what happened with you and Hardison.” Parker looks like the lightbulb has gone off.

“You’re not sure you can love me as much.”

With every sentence they’re turning a little away. Like he’s slowly being kicked out of the conversation. And it hurts. He knows they have their own thing, their own rhythm, but it sucks to have his girlfriend and his boyfriend shut him out.

“I’m ok with that. We can do different feelings.”

“Yeah well, maybe I’m not ok with that. It’s not fair to you to get less.”

“We’re not a table. We don’t get unbalanced.”

They keep going in this vein. They never look over. He feel invisible. It feels like the space between him and them is also inside of him. It feels cold, and lonely, and bad. Has it always been like this between them? But it’s usually behind his back? They decide and he just goes along? Now he knows what they talk about when he’s not there. Everything. He doesn’t know where this feeling came from but he hates it and it needs to go away right now.

He yells at his brain a bit. _Remember how happy you were 5 minutes ago?_ But he can’t get back there.

“What happens if you two want to get married, and we don’t? How’s that going to look?”

“Again with caring about the looking! I don’t - “

Alec finds himself interjecting with no conscious thought.

“No one’s getting married to me without my permission. Which neither of you are even _asking_ about.” That came out a little louder than he meant.

Parker and Eliot both look guilty at that. They turn back to face him.

“It’s great that you two have your feelings conspiracy.” They look confused but he’s not going to stop to explain. He’s still feeling around his emotions. Why is he so upset? “But I’m here and I’m in this and you can’t talk about this without me all the time.” He realizes his voice cracked a little bit in there somewhere. Now they’re just staring at him, which, great, now he has to figure out something to say.

But them putting them back in the loop is helping him out already. He breathes a bit. He tells himself it’s ok that they’re friends, it’s good that they’re friends. _And you’re what? Their toy?._ No, deep breaths.

He thinks of something constructive to say. Which is, “I think both of you are putting too much pressure on this. It was one kiss. No one’s getting married, no one has to know what they want right now. Why don’t we just sleep on it?” They both nod, which thank goodness. He’s definitely hit his limit on being calm. Then before they can rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to stay and really piss him off, he suggests that they _both_ stay, in their own rooms.

They agree again, which is actually maybe freaking him out a bit. He’s starting to wonder what’s going on with his face.

He expects that they’ll both retreat to their rooms but to his surprise they drop down on the couch and make a space for him in the middle.

“Clone Wars?” Parker suggests. Eliot looks like the suggestion is causing him physical pain but doesn’t say anything. Alec knows what’s up here. But they’re being so obvious he doesn’t mind.

“You’re forgiven. Just don’t do it again.” Parker smiles at him. “We’re still watching Clone Wars though. You can’t take that back.” Eliot groans.

***

Alec sets his alarm for stupid early, staggers into his running shoes, and meets a very surprised Eliot and Parker in the main area while they’re doing their stretches.

“I’m coming for the run,” he says superfluously.

“I see that,” Eliot says. Parker just stares at him suspiciously.

Five minutes into it and he remembers why this is the devil’s activity. He’s not sure what hurts more, the fire in his calves or the way each breath feels like a stab of ice into his heart.

Parker and Eliot look fresh as daisies, like they’re both Terminators or something.

“Seriously, man, just go home.”

“No, nope. I got this. This is fine.” Why did he talk, now he’s gasping on top of everything.

“Why are you doing this? I’m starting to get worried your heart is going to explode.”

“Is this about last night?”

He tries to keep a blank face, but the torture has stripped all of his defenses away. Parker stops running. Eliot sort of steps back and forth in place but isn’t going anywhere. Busted.

“I don’t know. You guys have this thing and you make all these decisions.” Parker and Eliot do one of their little stare exchanges. And see this? This is what he’s talking about. He could do a stare if he wanted. He just usually uses his _words_ like someone who passed kindergarten. And wow if this is what running does, no wonder Eliot is so angry all the time.

“Kay. We won’t.”

“We’re still going to run though. We just won’t talk about Hardison stuff. Deal?” And yes? He guesses that’s what he wants. Suddenly he feels bad for trying to take their thing. There’s probably a lot they’ve got going on to be so chill about this whole ‘Alec dates two people’ thing.

“Yes, well, um, actually it doesn’t really matter so -”

“Nah, you’re right.” And again, why isn’t he recording everything so he could play that back to Eliot at appropriate moments. “You get a vote too.”

“You coming?” And then they start to jog off. Oh he sees how it is. He’s being punished.

“Real mature,” he wheezes as he tries to catch up.

When they make it back to the apartment, Alec is pretty sure he’s died.

“You’re such a big baby.” But Eliot helps drag him up the final steps.

“Dibs on first shower!” Parker calls out.

Then Eliot speaks.“Hey.” Alec flops over a bit so he can take a look at Eliot. “You want any company?”

And it’s like the world is in slow motion, Matrix style bullet-time. He can see the impact of Eliot’s words on Parker one at a time. First polite interest, then realization, then hunger.

They swing into each other’s orbits and they’re kissing. Real, full-on, makeout stuff. It’s crazy hot. As one, they reach out a hand to Alec and pull him in. Then Parker’s kissing him while Eliot has latched his mouth onto Alec’s ear. Damn Eliot, always going for the sensitive spots.

God they’re so sweaty though.

Before he can register what’s happening, they’ve switched off and Eliot is kissing him now. Parker’s got her hand in Eliot’s hair and she’s staring at them like they’ve upgraded from fast car to priceless, poorly defended antique.

When they break apart, they’re all breathing hard.

“Shower?”

“Right,” Eliot says, then scoops up Parker and carries her to the bathroom. Alec can hear her giggle as he scrambles on Bambi legs to follow.

It’s a lengthy shower and a huge breakfast later when Parker says,“Ok, now we’re telling the team.”

Eliot just smiles into his coffee mug.

  
  


*END*

  


**Author's Note:**

> Did you know you can get robot unicorn attack on your phone now? I do and I regret my loss of productivity.
> 
> Comments are loved!


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